Editorial: Don't ask, don't tell, just repeal

Members of the uniformed military are sworn to take orders, not vote on what those orders should be. So the Pentagon intentionally did not ask service members whether gay and lesbian service members should be allowed to serve openly. Instead, as part of a 10-month study, the Defense Department asked them how they thought the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" would affect them.

MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, MA

Writer

Posted Dec. 2, 2010 at 12:01 AM
Updated Dec 2, 2010 at 2:13 AM

Posted Dec. 2, 2010 at 12:01 AM
Updated Dec 2, 2010 at 2:13 AM

» Social News

Members of the uniformed military are sworn to take orders, not vote on what those orders should be. So the Pentagon intentionally did not ask service members whether gay and lesbian service members should be allowed to serve openly. Instead, as part of a 10-month study, the Defense Department asked them how they thought the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" would affect them.

Their answers make it clear that the excuse that troops would be so uncomfortable with openly gay soldiers among them that it would compromise readiness just doesn't hold water. Seventy percent of more than 115,000 troops surveyed said repealing DADT would have a positive impact, a mixed impact or no impact at all.

Supporters of the 17-year-old policy note that the numbers were lower for service members in combat units, with several reasons suggested for the discrepancy. Combat units have life-and-death concerns that take priority over the situation of gay service members. The authors of the report noted that combat troops, like everyone else, can have attitudes that reflect bias and ignorance.

But the study's authors underlined another finding: 69 percent of respondents said they believed they had worked with gay or lesbian service members. Of those, fully 92 percent said their unit's ability to work together was very good, good, or neutral.

As millions of people, inside and outside the military, have learned, the concerns raised when considering gay people in the abstract tend to disappear when it's a real coworker, family member or friend who happens to be gay. Walls come down, stigmas are erased and people get over it, fairly quickly.

That's why the authors of the Pentagon study, as well as their superiors, are confident that DADT can be repealed with minimal disruption.

The obstacle to repealing this wasteful, discriminatory problem isn't with the troops in the field, but with the senators in Congress. A bill awaiting Senate action would authorize military leaders to change the policy on their timetable, ensuring an orderly transition. The bill must be passed soon, or it's back to square one in January, with a Republican-led House unlikely to move on repeal.

Another alternative, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned, is that the courts will overturn the policy overnight. That's what happened last month, in a California case now under appeal.

Senate Republicans must stop stonewalling on DADT repeal. That applies especially to our own Sen. Scott Brown, who has played coy on the issue. A member of the Armed Services Committee, Brown has refused to support repeal until the Pentagon study was complete. Now that the troops have spoken, it's time Brown showed the independence he promised, by bucking his party's leaders and letting this bill come up for a vote.